The power of women and life

posted at 4:52 pm on January 29, 2010 by Doctor Zero

The National Organization for Women has protested the decision of CBS to allow a pro-life ad from Focus on the Family to air during the Super Bowl game. The ad features Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. Pam returned the kickoff of a life-threatening pregnancy to put Tim in the red zone for claiming that Heisman trophy. NOW has called on CBS to dump the ad, prompting Sarah Palin – currently the starting quarterback of the pro-life team, and a player with serious skin in the game – to respond with a characteristically bold forward pass from her Facebook pocket:

What a ridiculous situation they’re getting themselves into now with their protest of CBS airing a pro-life ad during the upcoming Super Bowl game. The ad will feature Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mom, and they’ll speak to the sanctity of life and the beautiful potential within every innocent child as Mrs. Tebow acknowledges her choice to give Tim life, despite less than ideal circumstances. Messages like this empower women! This speaks to the strength and commitment and nurturing spirit within women. The message says everything positive and nothing negative about the power of women – and life. Evidently, some women’s rights groups like NOW do not like that message.

NOW president Terry O’Neill says Palin is missing the point:

The goal of the Focus on the Family ad is not to empower women. It’s to create a climate in which Roe v. Wade can be overturned. There are always going to be women who need abortions. In this country, one in three women will have an abortion.

So, the point is that people who think Roe vs. Wade should be overturned lose their right to free speech? Does this principle apply to all Supreme Court decisions? If so, I guess we’d better get started on the Obama impeachment hearings, after the embarrassing disrespect he showed the Supreme Court during the State of the Union address.

It’s nostalgic to read a press release from NOW again. The organization was last seen sinking into the bubbling tar of the Clinton impeachment saga, babbling incomprehensibly about how sexual harassment really isn’t such a big deal when pro-abortion Democrat presidents do it. Like every appendage of the socialist state, NOW has no principle beyond fealty to the political party that grants it power, and the Democrats used to grant them a remarkable amount of power – enough to end the careers of Navy officers and combat pilots, after “investigations” that stopped just short of waterboarding. When NOW talks about “empowering” women, it speaks in the collective sense. Empowerment comes from obedience to feminist organizations, which use that power to drag an oversized chair up to the grim carving table where the Democrat Party wields its redistibutionist cleavers.

Some critics cite unquestioning support for unrestricted abortion rights as the primary demonstration of loyalty power feminists seek from their supporters, but the NOW offensive against the Tebow ad, and their response to Sarah Palin, suggest the true sacrament of radical feminism is not abortion… it’s opposition to the pro-life movement. Power in a collectivist system comes from tribal loyalty, and hatred is a powerful glue for holding collectives together. As with leftist racial groups, NOW has very little positive to offer its supporters these days, so it thrives by pointing fingers at its enemies. Religious people in general, and outspoken pro-life advocates in particular, look very good on the business end of a trembling finger.

The Tebow ad will not call for the overturn of Roe vs. Wade. It’s meant to be a heartfelt endorsement of life, from a mother who chose it against the recommendation of doctors, in the face of her own suffering and possible death. As Palin says:

NOW is looking at the pro-life issue backwards. Women should be reminded that they are strong enough and smart enough to make decisions that allow for career and educational opportunities while still giving their babies a chance at life. In my own home, my daughter Bristol has also been challenged by pro-abortion “women’s rights” groups who don’t agree with her decision to have her baby, nor do they like the abstinence message which she articulated as her personal commitment.

My own opposition to abortion-on-demand is not religious in nature. I believe there aren’t enough people in the world. The decision to deny a human being his, or her, opportunity to enter the living world and make the choices that compose a lifetime should never be made lightly. For people of religious faith, the exercise of free will was a parting gift to creation from its Author. For the atheist, the expanding nova of human choice brings light and meaning into a universe of cold dust and searing plasma. Either way, life is precious, and it follows that those who follow Pam Tebow’s path are worthy of respect. How can we render that respect, if we insist her choice was absolutely equivalent to terminating little Tim, right up to the moment when his head emerged from the birth canal?

We’re nowhere near the repeal of Roe vs. Wade, a naked exercise of raw judicial power… which is apparently so fragile that a son thanking his mother for the gift of life could tear it to shreds. I wonder how many of the other iron laws supporting statism are actually written on tissue paper. If Roe were repealed, the question of abortion restrictions would return to the states, and people contemplating the examples of Sarah Palin, Bristol Palin, and Pam Tebow would gain the dangerous freedom to express their beliefs through smaller, more responsive governments. I can understand why NOW and its fellow travelers would be terrified of that possibility. It has nothing to do with “keeping abortion legal,” for there is no chance Americans would ever vote to outlaw it completely, in every state. It has everything to do with siphoning power from the useful fantasy of a world that will never exist, and the ugly caricatures who tower above it with scourges and holy books.

A society reveals much of its character in the way it treats its women and children. Palin finds common cause with NOW in calling out “advertisers and networks for airing sexist and demeaning portrayals of women that lead to young women’s diminished self-esteem and acceptance of roles as mere sexed-up objects.” Abortion on demand has been very useful for preserving the self-esteem of men who desire casual sex without consequence. Perhaps those men would be less likely to view the women in their lives as problems, if they didn’t know there was an easy solution right around the corner.

The Tebows are not planning to use their Super Bowl minutes for a sermon, or to impose their views on anyone. They only want their chance to testify that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not an equation that balances out to zero. The idea that such a statement is unacceptably political is further evidence that our lives have become too politicized, because too many decisions have been bumped to an upstairs office that doesn’t even have a suggestion box.

NOW is mistaking a compelling narrative for compulsion. No organization that demands suppression of the other side’s free speech is “pro-choice” in any sense of the words. Feminists are certainly free to produce their own Super Bowl ad, trumpeting the virtues of partial-birth abortion, or any other practice they don’t think Pam and Tim Tebow support with suitable enthusiasm. Something tells me most people would choose to change the channel during that ad.

Blowback

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People have gotten all kinds of nonchalant about c-sections and that leaves a scar and you don’t hear people despising those losers.

happyfeet on January 30, 2010 at 5:42 PM

That’s because some people view childbearing as the Holy Grail, and nearly any means to that end is acceptable – even laudable! And of course, the more the better! America has rather always valued quantity over quality…

But on the other side we’ve gotten much too flippant about abortion. Don’t want kids? Use BC or get yourself snipped. Quit wasting scarce medical resources because you were too lazy/inebriated/careless/stoned to use proper methods of contraception.

A good friend of mine had an abortion years ago and regretted her decision as soon as she left the doctors office. What’s really sad is that she would have made a wonderful mom and will probably never have that opportunity. So if this ad saves 1 life or 1 person from living with sadness and regret, then it is important to let it air.

fragile people are fragile I think… my abortion friends are happy moms now with educations and nice jobs and husbands what love them and that sort of thing. They are good people what make the world more better and they all voted against the little president man.

fragile people are fragile I think… my abortion friends are happy moms now with educations and nice jobs and husbands what love them and that sort of thing. They are good people what make the world more better and they all voted against the little president man.

That’s because some people view childbearing as the Holy Grail, and nearly any means to that end is acceptable – even laudable! And of course, the more the better! America has rather always valued quantity over quality…

no actually that’s true, red. Jeez. If every woman what had an abortions was reduced to a blubbering neurotic don’t you think people would have noticed?

happyfeet on January 30, 2010 at 6:45 PM

My friend doesn’t cry in public. Haven’t you ever heard of laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.
Your fairy tale friends, living fairy tale lives wouldn’t tell you because in fairy tales they all live happily ever after. In the real world they live with the guilt.

My own opposition to abortion-on-demand is not religious in nature. I believe there aren’t enough people in the world. The decision to deny a human being his, or her, opportunity to enter the living world and make the choices that compose a lifetime should never be made lightly. For people of religious faith, the exercise of free will was a parting gift to creation from its Author. For the atheist, the expanding nova of human choice brings light and meaning into a universe of cold dust and searing plasma.

Hey dippy, I am hospice nurse, they cry when they die for the children they threw in the trash. The aunts cry for the nieces they took to the clinic and regret, the friends who helped their friend ruin their lives. The men who took their wives or girlfriends. I have seen many times the regret, over and over. All your happy friends could be crying every night.The part planned parenthood never advertisers.

People who focus their spirituality on others always seem to me to be abusing spirituality. That’s so missing the point, at least in my experience.

However, we arrive when we arrive, and not a second before. I try to let those hardballs fly right past. It doesn’t matter to me what some think about my own pro-choice stance. It’s mine. And that really is quite enough.

Sometimes, I’ll even vote against someone due to their stance, but only if all things are equal. There are other political issues that affect more people.

I guess I never worry too much about what the religious think or how they vote. They get one vote, just like me.

They are entitled to whatever issues they vote upon, too. And, they can communicate in whatever way they think best demonstrates their own spiritual perspective. I’d question the judgment a lot of times. It’s not very warm or attractive, at least not to me. Never was.

I prefer Palin’s version of pro-life, which is affirming. The shamers? I never had much patience with that type in life. They seem very cold and distant from real people.

Can’t take it down when I see it at least 2-3 times a year.
Truth is truth. Nice to sit on a perch and not be in the trenches. Oh and yes, I did raise a kid I did not give birth too, so please no argument about me not doing my part.

Hey dippy, I am hospice nurse, they cry when they die for the children they threw in the trash. The aunts cry for the nieces they took to the clinic and regret, the friends who helped their friend ruin their lives. The men who took their wives or girlfriends. I have seen many times the regret, over and over. All your happy friends could be crying every night.The part planned parenthood never advertisers.

Until people move past this, the mistrust will grow. I think women need to stop telling one another what to think and how to think and what to do and all that bossy junk.

Enuf already.

Grown women get to make their own choices in life. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with pro-life people saying, “Think about this.” And there’s also nothing wrong with a woman having control over her own body and her own medical decisions. We’re not vessals to be controlled by others.

There’s plenty of room for everyone’s opinion. But when someone’s opinion meets MY life or MY choices, then I have a real problem.

I also live in the Midwest, but I would not make such a generalizeation as I feel like like you do. I find moral relativity to be extremely distasteful. I have had a pro-life blog for years and am very active in the pro-life movement here. I have heard every argument and justification for abortion there is. I have heard all the ones you post here. The true enabler of human brutality is dehumanization. Those who support abortion, and I refuse to call you prochoice because if you are not prolife you are pro-abortion, know that in order for abortion on demand to remain in place, it must not bear a human face. A good example of that is the terminology the pro-abortion crowd has implemented through the years. It is never a child, it is an unformed lump of protoplasm, and there are oh so many examples of that terminology through the years. One of the reasons so many pro-abortionists are so afraid of the Tebow ad is that it will have a huge audience and will put a human face to abortion. Of course, Joy Behar says that Tebow could have just as easily been born a pedophile rapist. Her intelligene continues to dazzle. The pro-abortionists are shaking in their boots over the Tebow ad and well they should be. As long as innocent lives without a voice are being slaughtered in this world, my voice will not be silenced. Another comment about the Midwest, I find we tend to be more prolife than pro-choice. Abortion has now become a method of birth control in this country which, of course, was never the intention. A word you will not hear the pro-abortionists utter is responsibility. That has been taken out of the equation.

Another comment about the Midwest, I find we tend to be more prolife than pro-choice.

I’m sure you’re right. I simply meant, we tend to be very independent.

I know I find it completely ridiculous to even discuss medical issues with strangers. I’d never allow it my own life.

I think it’s great you have found your “voice.” More power to you.

Unless you’re also violent, as some are in that arena. Then, no, you need to be stopped as a criminal. I wouldn’t assume you’re one of those types, but I also know some people take their passions into mental illness and into criminal activities.

Until people move past this, the mistrust will grow. I think women need to stop telling one another what to think and how to think and what to do and all that bossy junk.

Enuf already.

Grown women get to make their own choices in life. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with pro-life people saying, “Think about this.” And there’s also nothing wrong with a woman having control over her own body and her own medical decisions. We’re not vessals to be controlled by others.

There’s plenty of room for everyone’s opinion. But when someone’s opinion meets MY life or MY choices, then I have a real problem.

Tain’t none of your business.

And that is truly where we’re at today, legally. As it should be.

AnninCA on January 30, 2010 at 8:22 PM

The regrets of Norma McCorvey. Do you see any dichotomy at all in your last two sentences?

I’m sure you’re right. I simply meant, we tend to be very independent.

I know I find it completely ridiculous to even discuss medical issues with strangers. I’d never allow it my own life.

I think it’s great you have found your “voice.” More power to you.

Unless you’re also violent, as some are in that arena. Then, no, you need to be stopped as a criminal. I wouldn’t assume you’re one of those types, but I also know some people take their passions into mental illness and into criminal activities.

You just never know.

AnninCA on January 30, 2010 at 8:49 PM

Oh, Ann, must you cast aspersions and isn’t abortion itself, most especially partial birth abortion, violent enough? Or have you not had the nerve to look at the pictures. Of course, most proabortion advocates can’t or won’t because it might cause them discomfort. It isn’t pleasant seeing a perfectly formed little human being chopped to pieces. We wouldn’t want to discomfit anyone. The ugly face of abortion is therefore pushed under the rug and it all becomes about “rights.” But only for the mother, never for the child.

The midwest is suffering from the smothering effects of private and public unions, overregulation by federal and state governments telling us what to do, high state taxes, and in the case of Michigan, one-party rule by the Dems.

The reason why pro-choice women get such a bad rep is because people like Ann refuse to acknowledge the possibility that the view on the other side of the issue is as legitimate as their own. It’s so easy to dismiss pro-lifers are religious fanatics who want to control what other women do with their bodies. Acknowledging that they truly believe that ending a pregnancy is ending a life would force abortion activists to face the factual componant to the pro-life argument.

I believe in legal abortion, but I would never call myself pro-choice because I think it cheapens “wanted” pregnancies to say that allowing a fetus that was already concieved was merely a question, rather than an entirely new existance simply waiting to come to fruitation.

Trying to force others to accept the opinion that “it’s not a baby until _________” is just ridiculous, and equally fascist (if not moreso) than wanting to overturn the legality of abortion.

As a “concern troll” you are good. For morals and integrity, variable as expected.

Thanks for extending the comments.

Caststeel on January 30, 2010 at 9:05 PM

I never have figured out that particular label. Concern trolls to me are people who “warn” others constantly, like the little red hen, “don’t say this or that, because it’ll jinx the political mood.”

I can’t see that I do that at all. I do like Palin’s stance. I liked her stance clear back last year, when she said, “Yes, I’m pro-life, but come on, I sit down with people in my large and varied family, and we get along.”

I decided then that was a pro-life stance that I felt at ease with.

Now, I will say, the type of pro-life stance that doesn’t invite me to agree is the type I have seen here, which sounds a lot like “Repent!” It’s very disrespectful, in point of fact. It presumes that I don’t know my heart, don’t have a good solid spiritual grounding, and need to have my opinion changed, for my own good, of course.

If anyone is being a “concern” troll, I’d say it’s those who express that attitude.

Anyway, I remain convinced that women, in particular, need to get bast opinion walls and learn to listen to one another, support one another, and be one another’s best cheerleaders in life.

Happily, Ann, with the advent of the wonderful technology of ultrasound years ago, the abortion rate started to decline. There are still far too many, but once some women see the movement, the beating heart, the little string-of-pearls backbone, the formed limbs and the rounded head, it’s a little harder to say it’s not a life. But again, this is something proabortionist never talk about.

Happily, Ann, with the advent of the wonderful technology of ultrasound years ago, the abortion rate started to decline. There are still far too many, but once some women see the movement, the beating heart, the little string-of-pearls backbone, the formed limbs and the rounded head, it’s a little harder to say it’s not a life. But again, this is something proabortionist never talk about.

Glynn on January 30, 2010 at 9:19 PM

I also think birth control became a lot more convenient. There’s a lot of factors.

My stance is simple. This is her decision.

I support that, even those who obviously cannot afford to raise the child.

We can do better in making sure the children are nutured, if we decide to do so.

Ann, I believe I used the wrong term earlier. I said moral relativism. I would actually describe your stance, by this discussion as normative relativism, that you believe there is no true moral standard to judge others on, so we should tolerate all behaviors, even when they run opposite to our own moral standards. Or as Rodney King said, in his famous quote, “Can’t we all just get along.” Am I right?

AnninCA on January 30, 2010 at 9:27 PM
Ann, I believe I used the wrong term earlier. I said moral relativism. I would actually describe your stance, by this discussion as normative relativism, that you believe there is no true moral standard to judge others on, so we should tolerate all behaviors, even when they run opposite to our own moral standards. Or as Rodney King said, in his famous quote, “Can’t we all just get along.” Am I right?

Glynn on January 30, 2010 at 9:35 PM

No, I am a staunch supporter of individual rights when it comes to personal medical decisions.

And there’s also nothing wrong with a woman having control over her own body and her own medical decisions. We’re not vessals to be controlled by others.

AnninCA on January 30, 2010 at 8:22 PM

I honestly have trouble with the argument of “my body, my decision.” Indeed it may be a woman’s decision regarding getting pregnant but IMO once another life is created she loses her absolute control. As a society our “rights” are impacted by the rights of others.

Sort of OT but do you think that men should be able to wash their hands of an unwanted pregnancy? If the women can unrestrictedly say she doesn’t want the child, shouldn’t a man be able to do the same?

Sort of OT but do you think that men should be able to wash their hands of an unwanted pregnancy? If the women can unrestrictedly say she doesn’t want the child, shouldn’t a man be able to do the same?

katiejane on January 31, 2010 at 10:11 AM

Your point is indeed the obverse side of the abortion coin. If the mother is totally in charge of determining whether the child is to be allowed to live (“wanted”, in pro-choice-speak), the father has no responsibility to support said child, because he/she is totally a product of the mother’s whim, with the man only having contributed a haploid cell to the process. With absolute right comes absolute responsibility, and with absolute lack of right comes absolute lack of responsibility for the resulting outcome.

That’s the side of the coin the pro-choicers never look at, because it is so ugly.

Repent!” It’s very disrespectful, in point of fact. It presumes that I don’t know my heart, don’t have a good solid spiritual grounding, and need to have my opinion changed, for my own good, of course.

Ann, if you can honestly support killing your own child, you do need to have your opinion changed. It’s maddness. It has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the fact that a new, unique human being is killed by abortion and you’re perfectly fine with that happening. You’re wrong.

There are very few issues in which I will state with complete certainty that the other side is wrong. Abortion is one of them. If you support abortion on demand, you are wrong.

That’s so sad. These people spit out facts, and don’t get how – sticking in something like it’s just a faceless statistic, won’t offend some of us. They need to open their wallets look at the pictures inside. I bet there is at least one picture of one of their children. 1 in 3 that’s so depressing.

This commercial is not apolitical is it? No. No it’s not. Hence our little discussion. Even the tv-watching idiots will know it’s political… it’s not just the rarefied intellects found here what will pick up on it.

And kids and young people are very sensitive to being manipulated. And what this commercial says is that there are thems what have major boundary issues when it comes to invading people’s lives. And they don’t care how cheesy or smarmy they have to be to cajole you to falling in lockstep with their dorky theocratic strictures.

What party do you think these kids will think these theocratic tools belong to?

…cheesy or smarmy or hurtful… hurtful to all the womens in the room what may have had an abortion… it’s sickening how self-righteously uncaring this sad little melodrama is what these tools are injecting into American households what just want to watch a football game.